Environmental group pushes reuse of plastic

Campaign asks that people be mindful of where waste ends up.Next time you're in line at the grocery store and the clerk is packing up your items in plastic bags, think how those bags might look floating in the ocean or littered across your favorite beach.

That unpleasant picture is exactly what the Earth Resource Foundation aims to drive home with its newest campaign.

The foundation is urging people to eliminate single-use plastics by refusing plastic bags and reusing whenever possible.

Stephanie Barger, the group's founder, said the foundation wants to emphasize the damage plastics can do to the marine environment.

At a workshop held Saturday at the Oasis Senior Center in Newport Beach, foundation representatives armed attendees with all the information they need to spread the word about plastic bag waste and what can be done to stop it.

The average family uses 700 single-use plastic bags per year; the additives in the plastic bags makes it difficult for them to be recycled, said the foundation's campaign coordinator Lindsey Payne.

About 86% of all ocean debris is plastic, and turtles and birds who feed in the ocean can't tell the difference between the plastic and their food, Payne said.

"It's an absolute necessity to start reducing our use of disposable plastic," said Ray Halowski, chairman of the Newport Beach chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. "A lot of it ends up in the oceans. We get tons and tons of plastic coming to the ocean."

The Earth Resource Foundation is a Costa Mesa-based nonprofit that has advocated for clean water and smoke-free beaches in Orange County.

The goal of Saturday's workshop was to inspire volunteers to go to grocery stores, or other places that use plastic bags, and educate others about the hazards of plastic waste, Barger said.

"It's a wide variety of people that are very concerned about this issue," Barger said.